


Do Metahumans Dream of Barry Allen?

by ellieptical



Series: Do Metahumans Dream of Barry Allen? [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Multi, Origin Story, Post-Season/Series 01, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 15:45:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4527921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellieptical/pseuds/ellieptical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-season 1 wherein Cisco starts seeing across more universes including multiple Iris/Barry iterations.  Basically this is (hopefully going to be) an epic Barry/Iris love story that's formulated as part of Cisco/Vibe's origin story. This post-season one is probably slightly darker than the season 2 we'll get.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Metahumans Dream of Barry Allen?

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed, though if anyone does want to beta for me that would be appreciated as I'm terrible at keeping tenses straight. I am not familiar enough with the comic canon to base Cisco/Vibe's powers off that so I'm only going with TV show canon. Feedback is appreciated. Still trying to nail down their voices. Title is a rip off of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick.

Iris wraps her legs around Barry’s waist; one of his hands is at the base of her spine the other is tangled in her hair pushing her into the kiss. She winds her hands into his hair, pulling slightly; she knows he likes it rough.  
Barry walks her forward, until her back is against the wall. His hips push up slightly and she moans, moves her hands down to his shoulders and digs her nails in, his hips cant upwards again, harder.  
Iris grinds against his stomach, tightens her thighs and groans into Barry’s mouth. He pulls them away from the wall, breaking the kiss. Iris presses kisses over his face as he navigates backwards towards the bed. His legs hit the duvet and he lowers them to the bed. Iris shifts down Barry’s body, nails scratching lightly through his t-shirt until she’s seated in his lap, she grinds down again and Barry moans as the denim of his jeans creates friction in all the right places. His hips twitch upwards and Iris repeats the action. Barry can’t stand it anymore and flips them over, snatching Iris’ hands up above her head and sliding down her body. He pushes her t-shirt up, and laves his tongue across her nipple, once, twice before continuing further down. She cants her hips up and he eases her sweats down her legs. Barry sits back and bits his lip before leaning in.

 

Cisco bolts upright, panting heavily. Suddenly hyperaware of two things: 1. He’s ridiculously turned on and 2. Maybe Wells was right after all; he’s probably not entirely normal anymore. 

He knows it wasn’t just his emotionally exhausted, sexually frustrated brain giving him a bizarre yet scorching hot sex dream. It felt like the dreams he had of death and Wells. There’s tangibility to them that there isn’t in normal dreams, a shimmer around the edges. He can’t describe it properly but it’s like looking at water through heat. There’s a haze to them, like they’re being filtered through space and time to his own personal head-cinema. 

But knowing it was real and knowing what he actually saw are two very different things. He sits on his bed; chest still heaving for a good 10 minutes before he decides a shower would be a start. He really wants to jerk off, but can’t, it’d be too much like voyeurism and he’s doesn’t want to go there. He’s a guy whose brain has been mutated by a particle accelerator and died in some other place and time; he’s not a creep. 

After showering and dressing he realizes it’s only 3am. So he decides to go for a run, after all he’s spent a year and a half watching Barry run; it can’t be that hard surely?

IT IS! It is so hard. Cisco is not a runner. He is an anti-runner. He’s a sitter. So he sits on a bench in the park and thinks about the best way to tell one of your best friends that the woman he loves is definitely banging his brains out in another reality. Ultimately Cisco decides the best way to tell Barry that is to not tell him that. It’s too weird, and it’s not like the Wells stuff where the fate of the world actually, literally, depends on it. It’s just weird to know. It’s not the weirdest thing Cisco knows though, that’s definitely still how it feels to have your heart crushed in your chest, again in a very literal way. Maybe this is PTSD thing? Maybe it’s this universe giving him something from another universe that isn’t awful? Cisco isn’t sure that he’d have put Barry and Iris’ home sex tape as number one on his wishlist but it was nice to wake up not screaming for a change. So there’s that. 

 

Cisco gets to S.T.A.R. Labs a little after 6 and makes a pot of coffee before going to take readings from the singularity exclusion zone they’ve set up in the particle accelerator. Just in case. There’s no change in any of the readings. No spikes in radiation. Everything is normal. 

Cisco laughs then because really even after everything that has happened this morning calling things ‘normal’ has to be the weirdest thing he’s thought today. Nothing is normal. Wells has vanished after Raiders of the Lost Ark-ing into another dude’s face. Caitlin is married to a guy who occasionally shares his body with another guy (and not in a cool, open relationship, poly-amorous kind of a way) and frequently travels by flame. Eddie, who by all accounts was a nice, pretty cool guy, if by ‘pretty cool’ you mean self-sacrificing hero is definitely dead but only listed as Missing in Action by the CCPD. Joe is trying to ‘solve’ Eddie’s ‘disappearance’ whilst trying to let Captain Singh know just enough to stay safe but not enough that Barry’s identity is in danger. Iris, man, Iris is just putting on the greatest act of all time. She’s put together, professional and downright cutthroat at Picture News but the rest of the time she’s effectively mute and has a vague scent of whiskey about her. Barry? Barry’s the craziest thing though and probably going to beat Iris in the Worst Coping Mechanism awards. He’s almost 100% normal, totally Barry Allen. Except not at all really. There’s hollowness behind his eyes. He hasn’t told anyone what happened in the past with his mother, or what happened with the singularity. He runs on the treadmill every spare moment. He runs until the suit starts to send out all sorts of alarms, until he’s doubled over and vomiting. Once he ran so hard he started to bleed from the eyes. He’s not getting faster though. He’s just running harder but going nowhere. Fuck if that ain’t a metaphor for their whole situation he doesn’t know what is. 

God he’s tired. He puts his head onto his arms and dozes whilst he waits for Caitlin to arrive. 

 

Barry and Iris huddle together for warmth. Her head rests on his shoulder and he presses his lips against her forehead and twines his fingers with hers. Iris pulls the tarp tighter around them and tries to block out the sounds of screams down the block. Barry tries to ignore the hunger pangs in his stomach. He’s not been able to run for weeks now, and people are dying around him but he doesn’t have the energy. Not being the Flash anymore was strange, especially when he could feel the lightning humming in his veins but there was no more he could give. He’d saved as much of the city as he could but the wave had wiped out most of the electrics and destroyed all the downtown areas. When he’d seen the tsunami hit he’d seen his wall start to quiver and then the water had come crashing through but without the force it would have had. He knew he should have used those few moments to get everyone out of there but he’d grabbed Iris and got her to the highest point before going back for Joe. He’d been just in time to see the Weather Wizard, either too tapped out or just resorting to muscle memory, shoot Joe in the head. Barry had seen death, up close, and he’d seen dying but Joe’s brains and blood spraying across his face as he ran to catch him was something else entirely. He didn’t understand how he hadn’t been fast enough. How did that day end with Joe dying in his arms? He’d wiped the blood off his face and clothes and hadn’t told Iris, he couldn’t. She knew Joe was dead, drowned at sea and that was all the truth she needed for now.  
Iris whimpered in her sleep and snuggled in tighter to his chest. They were going to have to go scavenging for thicker clothes, or maybe a blanket, or they wouldn’t make it through the colder nights. 

 

“Cisco, wake up, I’ve brought coffee” Caitlin singsongs quietly.  
The chair hit the floor with a crash as Cisco leapt back from the desk. He’s panting heavier than this morning and feels entirely nauseous and bone achingly cold.  
“What the fuck?”  
Caitlin’s eyebrows shoot up, “what’s wrong?”  
Cisco runs through his options which are: not telling her or telling her and historically not telling women about things relating to Barry Allen has not worked out brilliantly so he goes with the latter.  
“I think I’m a metahuman”  
“Well, I suppose that makes sense actually, I mean there had to be a reason you could see the other Wells and Cisco and we do work above the particle accelerator so y’know…Occam’s Razor and all that?”  
Cisco realizes he should have known that Caitlin would take this in her stride; she’s married to Firestorm. Still, he’s unprepared for the specimen jar she thrusts in his face.  
“Can you urinate into this?”


End file.
